03.31.08

How does having a rational or irrational population influence your utopia?

Response to discussion:

The concept that Edward Bellamy (the author of Looking Backwards) was
trying to get through to the reader was that in their society it didn’t
have a reason for anyone to rebel. In other words, it was really rare
for someone to go against something since their society created
equality amongst the people. I think that the utopia that Bellamy
created was “perfect” where people had nothing to disagree with. If
someone were to do something wrong rather than a jail, the person was
sent to the hospital.

I disagree with frostbittentomato because once a utopia is corrupted
people will know how to corrupt it once more. In the Giver people are
like robot people. They did their job and slept. They had no feelings
and past memories. If some one corrupted people would not know how to
rebuild it. They have to start from scratch and a new generation.

Since in the book We it was corrupted and was in a 200 year war i do
not think that they could come back as a utopia. The society of We is
built up upon the idea that every person is categorized by numbers and
letters so it allows for people to live in harmony and trade in
harmony. The integral is just like the internet when a place gets a bad
wrap not very many people will go there and the people who stay will
internally corrupt the society. When a site on the internet doesnt have
any reason to stay and it still costs money for the people to keep it
alive the site will be shut down.

I don’t think that the society in Looking Backward could ever happen
because it’s too perfect. It does not seem possible to have a world
that will agree to have the exact same amount of money. The people who
are richer than others will most likely not agree to suddenly change
into a world where there are no richer or poorer people. The usually
richer people will have to live the same lives as the ones that once
were really poor. The richer people will surely resist, and this will
start a big argument. Bellamy’s imagined utopia also has a flexible
society with a wider range of personal freedom. That much freedom, I
think would not be possible.

In Fahrenheit 451 not everyone was happy they just put on an act of
happiness in order to fit in with everyone. For example Mildred (Guy’s
wife) didn’t seem all that happy but she still said she was.